The Written Years
by kookieznkream
Summary: "You freed me, and I didn't ask you to. I didn't want you to. I am more free now than I have ever been, and I am spiraling. I am spiraling across the world. Maybe you are, too." Letters from Sasuke to Naruto throughout the years as he travels. Slight SasuNaru. Slight OOC.
1. Homesick Dirge

**Summary:** Behind me was everything was everything I had ever known, and in front was a future, maybe. And even though I was afraid to leave everything I had ever known, I also wanted a future, maybe. And so, hesitating, and then not, and then moving quickly, running, sprinting even, desperate, I crossed and found a future. Maybe. And left behind everything I had ever known.

* * *

 **Homesick Dirge**

Naruto–

I am currently north of Konoha. Once you go north of Konoha, the landscape starts winding down real quick, doesn't it? It's all majestic forests before that. As you go further north, it's like you forget the grandeur ever existed.

I don't think the landscape is that bad, really. Just…anything's a letdown from the forest.

Behind me was everything was everything I had ever known, and in front was a future, maybe. And even though I was afraid to leave everything I had ever known, I also wanted a future, maybe. And so, hesitating, and then not, and then moving quickly, running, sprinting even, desperate, I crossed and found a future. Maybe. And left behind everything I had ever known.

Now that I'm finally free of my burden, I realized that there are a lot of different types of freedom. We used to talk about freedom the same way we talked about art, like it was a statement of quality rather than a description. "Art" doesn't mean good or bad. Art just means art. It can be terrible and still be art.

Freedom can be good or bad, too. There can be terrible freedom.

You freed me, and I didn't ask you to. I didn't want you to. I am more free now than I have ever been, and I am spiraling. I am spiraling across the world. Maybe you are, too.

I want our lines to cross, even one more time.

It's getting dark. And when it gets dark, over the grass, it really gets dark. Like being on an ocean. The distant lights of towns out there, like marooned ships. There's only a last lingering orange on the horizon, and it's just me on this road.

I stopped at a town for the night. The sign said "Sugi Village". Have we been there before?

Suffice it to say that it is town like many towns, with a town hall, and an onsen, and a teahouse, and a market, and, of course, a inn. On all sides, it was surrounded by forest. It is much like Konoha, perhaps. It might be more like Konoha than you'd like to admit, Naruto.

I can't stop thinking about what's behind me. Not what I'm carrying. Me and my cargo. Hauling what needn't have ever been from the place it needn't have been made to whatever came next.

I'm not getting distracted. I know what you're thinking, Naruto. This is intentional avoidance. I don't have to explain myself to you.

But I will.

I'll start with the man in purple cloak.

There was a man. He caught me staring at him in the local teahouse near the inn and he stared back. Now we were staring at each other, something electric and monstrous there in the teahouse between us.

He got up and approached my table. His clothes were filthy. He walked like his legs weren't muscle and bone, but just sacks of meat attached to his torso. He sat across from me and he licked his lips. When he spoke, his voice sounded like the rasping howling of the wind.

"It's a fine evening," he said. "Doesn't look much like rain."

At first I didn't say anything. I thought if I was quiet, he would go away, but…that only works with people who aren't already in it to bother you, who haven't already made up their minds to be awful.

"Hope you don't mind if I join you," he said. Not a question or a request, but…a joke.

"I actually was hoping to eat alone," I said.

"Good people deserve good things," he said.

I didn't know what to say to that.

He scratched his cheek, scratched it really hard, and I swear that some of it peeled away under his fingers.

"It's dangerous out here," he said.

"Out where?" I said. "This state? This country? Life? Life is dangerous? Did you come over here to explain death to me?"

He laughed.

"Yes," he said. "I came over to explain death to you."

He leaned in close. His breath was rotten. Not bad, but like fruit turning to soil.

"Want to see something funny?" he asked.

He set a small slip of paper on the counter. On it, written in dull, smeared pencil, were the words "ŌTSUTSUKI". The handwriting was shaky and the pencil had been pressed down hard.

I couldn't stop staring at it, even though I didn't know what about it was interesting.

"Interesting", I said.

I got no answer so I looked up. He was already outside. From the window, I could see the man outside the teahouse. He was running out to the forest, just barely at the edge of radius of light of the teahouse. His arms were swinging wildly, his dirty purple cloak fluttering with the speed of his motion. His legs were flailing, great puffs of dust kicked up behind him, his head thrown back, sweat visible running down his neck even from where I sat. The kind of run that was from something and not toward. Then he left the faint edge of the light and was gone.

I hope never to see him again. There may be more danger ahead, and I think things will be getting more difficult for me from here on out. There's noise outside my bedroom window now, in the inky darkness of the forest. Roaring and shifting, like an enormous angry animal.

The noises stopped just as suddenly as it started. They let me off with a warning, I guess.

I guess it's a warning I'm going to ignore.

You might know what to do, Naruto. You would know exactly what was going on, looking like nothing was a surprise to you.

Nothing ever was a surprise to you, was it? You always knew everything.

Remember when I was first released? I went to groups. I sat in circles and talked about you. That's what we do now, right? As a civilization, we sit in a circle and we describe the shape of the monster that is devouring us. We hope, like a talisman, that our description will provide some shelter against it.

It won't, though. We are helpless.

The circle was fine. It wa– It was good, actually. I talked about you, How you were always a little strange, but Naruto, I never thought….I never thought.

I never.

I stopped going to the groups a few months afterwards. I stopped sitting in a circle. I started to leave, started leaving the village, trying to understand, trying to get a grasp on the…you know, the…the…on the...

Oh, I don't know.

I'm still sitting in a circle. Just writing the story over and over on this paper, hoping that you will read it, and understand.

Hoping to ward off the monster by describing the shape of it.

Every relationship, no matter how long, no matter the history, is expected to be temporary. Separation is never a surprise. After a few months since my return, I started to look through the things you kept for me since I first left. I had left them alone; didn't want to get tangle in the memories just yet. But now they weren't memories. They were evidence. Clues to a story you had failed to tell me.

Maybe I'm chasing a ghost once again.

Chasing a ghost over many creeks. Not by that many bays. Mostly land. Mostly lots of land.

I'll keep running. I'll keep wandering this world.

Every time I look behind, I worry that I made a mistake of leaving you behind.

This better be worth it, Naruto.

Nothing ever could be.

–Sasuke

* * *

 **A/N: Please read and review! Should I continue with this as a long-form series? Should I just keep it as a oneshot?**


	2. On the Run

**A/N: Thanks for reading chapter 2. It's a teensy bit shorter than the first chapter but it's because I've been sick today and yesterday. I'll try to update regularly since classes start again on Jan 2 for me and I have work on the side as well :( Anyways please read and review!**

* * *

 **On the Run**

Naruto–

He is waiting for me outside the inn. I'm not sure for how long but he was standing a few feet outside and staring, no, squinting, at a window.

It's getting light now. The clock says the same things as it did when I went to bed last night, but it's the other hemisphere of the day.

We talk a lot, as a species, about the night sky. It's one of those subjects that come up more often than, say, the social structure of bees. That's just an example. Which is interesting, because the social structure of bees is something. It is an active object that can be looked at. And so much of the night sky is nothing at all. Mostly void, partially stars.

Or don't listen to me. I'm only saying it because…well…if you could see what I'm seeing you'd understand. The night sky is something striking against the dark silhouettes of the trees. It's beautiful.

So much that I've seen is beautiful. More than you would think. Even the worse things.

And isn't it funny that the trees blot out the sky? Physical objects as shadows against the void.

We are nothing if not absurd.

We are nothing.

* * *

In his hand, he was gripping a bundle, his knuckles turning white.

The grip was almost tender, but there was nothing tender about the man with the purple cloak.

I don't know what he wanted, so I snuck out round the back of the inn and sprinted as fast as I can out of the village. This was supposed to be a one night stop. How did it end up like this?

Behind me, I could still see the man in the purple cloak. I could see the distant shadow of him behind me

I couldn't see details anymore. Those were in my memory.

* * *

Flat and grassy, I think. It's dark now, and the darkness is vast here. It really has a depth to it; keeps going.

I didn't think that dark could have a bottom until I saw a dark that didn't.

* * *

You know how they always say if you're trying to meet someone, you may never find them, but it's when you're not looking, that's when they find you. Well, I've seen the man again. I've seen him again and again in the shadow of the trees in the distance where I camp for the night, in alleyways of villages, sitting alone at the biggest booths of the smallest roadside restaurants, places where S-rank missing-nins hole up with a bottle of sake and bingo books in hand.

There's something brutal and clumsy in his movements, like he doesn't understand how any of him works. But he moves with such unusual grace and litheness that surprises me every time I see it.

And the sharp teeth. Not sharp enough to be fangs, but not human either.

And the yellow fingernails. Translucent yellow, just below the surface.

He hasn't talked to me again, but I've been seeing him, and he knows it. He wants me to know he's following me.

I don't know who this…I won't say "man." He isn't a man. I don't know what he is. Do you know, Naruto?

And now, here, the road between two places I've never heard of. closer to the night sky than I am to any other human. A night sky that seems gorgeous and heartbreaking, even though it's not. It's not anything. It just isn't.

Who is he, Naruto? What does he want from me? What is the meaning behind that slip of paper he gave me?

I'll keep running. I'll keep wandering the world. I'm going to find the answers. I will.

Hopefully I'll do it before the man finds me.

* * *

Every time I look behind, I worry that I see him, and his strange dirty hands pointing them at me, going faster and faster. What would you do, Naruto?

You would say that we lead frantic lives. Filled with needs and responsibilities, but completely devoid of any actual purpose. You would say let's try to enjoy the simple things. Life should be like a bowl of tonkotsu ramen: salty, full of fat and oil, and surrounded by sweet corn and menma you'll never actually eat, even when you're greedily slurping up the last viscous streaks of tonkotsu soup from bowl with your spit-stained index finger. Yes, you're right, that is as life should be, Naruto.

I should try meditation. I am currently planted on old, thinning futon, but in my mind I am anywhere but. I am above, in the sky above, looking down at Konoha. I see the lights, in grids and curves, and the places where there are no lights, because they are off…or missing…or invisible.

I see roads with carts and the people bustling around them. And the people are traveling through the dark in the comfort and light of the street lamps, and I see all of this from above. I see where the town gives way gradually to the forest; the last few lights from the last few homesteads, like stray sparks from a campfire, tossed out into the absolute black of the surrounding forests and eventually the deserts.

I see the orbit of citizen around citizen. All these ordinary people, about their ordinary lives, in this singular, extraordinary place we call home.

Moving higher into the cold, thin air of the upper atmosphere, I see below me the criss-crossed lines of condensation, the signature of wind jutsu that have long since moved on; the footprint of our civilization upon the night sky.

And looking up I see only the stars, and the void, all a little closer than they were before. All still so un-reachably distant.

I have something of urgent importance to tell you, but I will tell it to you later. Or I will tell it to you not at all. Certainly I will not tell it to you now. Now I merely look, from the vantage point of my own imagination, down at a town busy with its own existence.

And, for now, existence is enough. Our possible,but not very likely, existence, is enough for now.

–Sasuke


	3. Silver and Gold (Part 1)

**A/N:This, and the next chapter, will be a little bit of a heavier SasuNaru. But I swear it will be mild after next chapter. I couldn't help but indulge myself in this ship (๑′°︿°๑) rip**

* * *

 **Silver and Gold (Part 1)**

Naruto–

I really thought you were dead when we first fought at the Valley of the End, Naruto. I really did. I know that there is no evidence for it, but…I couldn't think – I really couldn't – I couldn't think of another reason you wouldn't just wake up and try to stop me like that. Just gone. Just not you next to me in the mornings during training or coughing whenever we slept in the same tent during missions. The halo of warmth you made in the air around you, just air now.

I mourned you, Naruto. I've never loved anyone so hard. From my goddamn gut. So screw you for that. I mean, really.

* * *

A few more hours from Sugi Village, to the next almost. And I know this sounds crazy, but I'm at the same spot where I slept last night. The same rotting log, the same tree under which I slept…but something's different. It's darker now, obviously, later in the day, edging onto evening, but that's not it. There's still the same ring of trees with that have been set up up with trap. The same ashes from a fire I made last night, now covered in mud and dirt. Everything is covered in mud. Black silt mixing in with the ashes, wet murk around a tree stump, a swamp like a bog.

There's a family - a teenage girl, but she's turned away from me, her face lit by the soft crackling glow of a new fire. There's an elderly man farther away from me, but he staring at something in his hands. He's turned away from me too, his face mesmerised by the fish they are roasting over the fire. No one is moving.

I want this forest to end. I want to leave this place.

Okay, I'm going. I'm going. A burst of speed from chakra. One foot in front of the other.

There's a deep black mud splashing against my pant legs. It's running into the creek.

You know I never paid attention to the news much, but when I arrived at Otogakure, I tried not to miss a minute of it. Multiple reports of news all over, it devoured me. And I started to see. A fire in the countryside of Hi no Kuni, a landslide in Tsuchi no Kuni, a hostage situation in Yuki no Kuni. Earnest folks speaking earnestly, describing only the bad parts of the world.

Based on what the news told me, the outside world seemed a dangerous that it wasn't before. It just seemed even more dangerous. There was always something world-ending cataclysm threatening us. The Akatsuki. The invasion of Konoha. Jinchuriki abduction. People stealing and mass-murdering clans with bloodline limits. It seemed safer to not have friends or hobbies. To wake up day after day, head down, train hour after hour, and then sit alone in my room, glass after glass of the medicine Kabuto prepared, scrolls open, safe from anything that might disrupt my routine.

And in the background, you. Just a mention sometimes, or sometimes long and elaborate stories of your triumphs. You, over and over. I made a list of every place I heard you from the messenger, and that list became a map of the world.

So, you weren't dead. That's good to know. That's new information.

* * *

East from Sugi Village, the landscape starts turning again. There is more rocky terrain interspaced with dust and sand.

There are different types of desert, you know. There is desert that is something – it's mesas or it's sand, it has contours and its own spatial language – and then there's desert that just…isn't. Flatlands is the absence of everything else. I suppose that this, too, has its own spatial language, but…boy, am I glad to see mountains again.

Are you doing this? What kind of genjutsu is it that I can't break?

I'm in the same spot again. It's hours and miles away, and again down the road. Am I going in circles? I know I'm not, all the other towns are passing along the way!

This place isn't on the map.

It's on fire. The whole forest is on fire. It's an inferno but I don't feel any heat.

I see something burning in the distance. I think it might have been a person. I don't want to think about which person I –

You're gift to me, I suppose? The clearing again.

Everything's back the way it was before. Everything is clean and new. The old man is now keeping watch, the teenage girl reading something. She is crying. She looks at me furtively, and she is crying.

The elderly man is also crying. His face is eroded by the tears, by what looks like years of weeping.

He isn't saying anything.

He's raising his hand. He gestures toward the road out of town. He nods.

I'm going to keep running. I'm leaving.

I'm leaving this place behind.

I don't know what this meant. I only know that it's meaning does not include me. I am not necessary to it.

* * *

East. The landscape is completely different. No more mile after mile of flatland. The loop is broken.

I don't think I'm going to see that place again. I am free of it. That's a good freedom.

You owe me an explanation, and I am going to see that you make good on that. I'm going to hear whatever story you've got to tell, and I'm going to hear it from you direct.

You may think you're free, Naruto, but you're not.

You are not free of me.

* * *

The movement and footsteps have continued. It's like they're trying to provoke me, get me to stop and look again, but I won't fall for it. I'll keep running until…until I don't know. I'll have to stop running eventually, and when I look next time, I don't think I will see nothing. I think I finally will see.

Heavy boots on the forest floor. I don't hear it. I don't hear it!

I do.

All right, I'm stopping. I'm going to look again. I really need it now. It's so dark out. I haven't seen that many people on this road, just me. Great.

Okay, I'm stopping. Here I go! Okay.

* * *

I'll just tell like it happened. That's what I'll do.

I don't know what it means…what it means for me, what it means for you.

Okay. I stopped at fishing lake just outside the next village. I figured, if nothing else, I'd have the protection of crowds, of the public. If nothing else, the lights. They would keep me calm after the long empty of the forest.

There was no need to look around, no searching, because there he was, the source of the noise.

The man, from the teahouse a couple weeks ago. Purple cloak, yellow fingernails, skin that didn't fit right, that stretched in grotesque ways over a skeleton that didn't seem human, sharp teeth – not sharp enough to be fangs, but not not fangs – eyes that were like Kaguya's. Dead and cold Byakugan.

"You miss me?" he asked. He sounded like he was having fun.

The rocks behind me were torn to shreds, like they'd been attacked by a huge cat. Giant claw marks. He hopped down onto the road and I backed up. Suddenly crowds didn't feel like much protection.

He smelled like decay. Not bad, but like fruit decomposing into soil, like mulch.

"Where do you think you're going?" he said. "I mean, where would you even go that I couldn't follow? Don't you know who I work for?" He gestured to my hand where he pressed the paper in. He was sweating a thick pungent mildew.

"There are people all over this village! Hundreds of them," I said. But I was exaggerating. It was a small village, but it was also very late and in the middle of nowhere. There were S-class missing-nins, yes, and mercenaries, yes, they were there, but not in great numbers. Certainly not hundreds. Still enough, I hoped. Enough.

He laughed.

"People?" he said. "People won't help you. There's not a person in this world who would help you."

Is he right, Naruto? Is there not a person in this world who would help me? I hope not. I hope not.

He took my arm. I don't know how he got that close, but he was there. And he did not grab, he took, like a dance partner. Gentle but insistent. And then he pushed me up against the tree trunk. The smell was overpowering. Up close, his skin writhed like there were insects crawling back and forth just under it. His teeth were rotten. His tongue was swollen and covered in a white film.

He had me. That was all there was to it. His arm was against my throat and he was pushing just enough to let me know that he could do it, but not enough to cut off air. I drew and released frightened breaths against the weight of him. I tried to free myself, of course, but it was like he felt nothing. And then I just flailed at him, trying to land a few practiced kicks. I still had my kunai. And though my swing was restricted, I gave him a few good ones. His body dented with the blows, but he didn't stop smiling. Didn't even grunt. Pushed just a little harder on my throat.

The kunai, heavy as a club, dropped out of my hand and fell uselessly away, and now my breath was truly shallow because of the pressure.

He said, "I could take a big bite of you right now and it would be over. I could devour you. And then, what would become of Konoha? What about Naruto?"

He knew about you. I don't know what else he knew; I gave up then. I shouldn't have, but I was out of energy. I've been searching for answers for so long! All those miles upon me, and now this monster!

And then…and then I didn't give up. I gathered myself. I kicked and I used every jutsu I could think of and I used every bit of energy and movement I had. I wouldn't go down quiet. I could see people all over the entrance of the village turning and looking. Even if I couldn't fight him, I could get them to look, get them to see.

A family – a father and two kids – and the kids were pointing, and the father was running. He was shouting urgently and gesturing towards me.

And still I fought.. Right up until…

* * *

The man let me go. I stumbled a few paces away, where he wouldn't be able to easily grab me.

The man just laughed.

Not a person in the world who would help me.

The man made no move to attack me again. The message had been delivered.

"You see now?" he said. "So go home. Listen," he seemed suddenly concerned, worried for me, even. "You can still go home."

He paused.

"That paper was a warning, not an invitation to look into it further."

Then the wolf grin returned, any trace of human emotion gone from him. And he turned and walked away into the night. To the lit edges of the lake, and into the thin landscaped border, and the vacant grassland beyond.

And me, I'm alive. I'm back on the road, and I'm alive.

He's not right. I can't go home. Home isn't a place, home is a person. I can't go home!

There are people watching my every move in the village. I've attracted their attention.

The man is working with them. I don't know how far this goes.

Listen to me. I sound crazy. Or the world does. The world sounds crazy. I want - no I need - to see you. Your face is all I need to stay sane.

I'm not going to stop. I owe you at least that. can't go home, Naruto. I can only go. I can only go on. And on, and on, and on, until not.

I've got my bags all packed and I'm ready to go. I could use something good, I really need this to work out. Of course, the way things have been going, it might be smarter to just give up.

You're on my mind and I need you to know I'm alright.

–Sasuke

* * *

 **A/N: I'm probably going to stick to Sunday updates since I can definitely work on this series over the weekend. Unless something comes up like a midterm or whatever, I might post chapters later than Monday or maybe in advance (っ˘̩╭╮˘̩)っ I cry everytime i think about my midterms and my upcoming thesis. (╥ᆺ╥；)** **But please read and review!**


	4. Silver and Gold (Part 2)

**A/N: This is an early upload I know! I got a whole bunch of spare time today and I've written several more chapters! woo!**

* * *

Sasuke–

Ashes and ashes, dust to dust. Hinata says that sometimes when we visit Neji's grave together. The simplified version of a complicated philosophy.

I'm rambling again. Here's the point of why I'm writing. There are glowing arrows in the sky. You probably can't see them. I do. It started a couple of weeks after Kaguya's defeat.

There are dotted lines and arrows and circles. When I look up at the sky, it's like the sky is a chart that explains the entire world. The past, present, what could come to pass. But you can't see it. I know that. I explained it to Shikamaru once. He muttered something about it being troublesome. I never tried to explain it to him again. Is it because of Hagoromo's chakra?

No one listens when I talk. They hear, but…but they don't listen. Even now, maybe your attention is drifting. Why pay attention to me? Why pay attention to Uzumaki Naruto? "There he goes again, with his rambunctious rambling."

The world makes sense. I– I believe that. I– I do. It has to. Otherwise…it wouldn't make sense! And that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen. But I see them! I see the arrows in the sky. I understand what is happening and what could happen.

People smile and nod when I try to explain. They want to be polite. Often, they are not. We all, all of us, so often fail at what we want to do. That's OK, as long as we understand our failure. As long as we see it. I see my failure to help Konoha the way I would like to help it. I would like to guide it somewhere new, but the only people who listened to me was you and... Hinata. I'm not sure. I don't understand her as well as I do you. And then…well, then all the rest happened.

I told Guy-sensei at my wedding because you weren't there. Why weren't you there, Sasuke? You were gone for months, only bothering to send a hawk to tell me that you weren't coming. I wanted to explain it to you, Sasuke. You would've believed me. Poor choice of an audience, of course. He was very nice when I first told him. I had made some dango. Product of boredom with the added benefit of reminding me of Itachi sometimes. It seemed right, in the midst of a formal celebration like that, to have a little touch of home, to remind people of the lifetime of simple gestures that this grand celebration was meant to launch.

"Oh," he said. "This is nice! This is the best dango I've ever had!"

He hasn't said anything like that in some time since the war.

We chatted for a while. I don't remember what about. Maybe the weather.

No, definitely the weather. I remember it was the weather, because we had to stand in awkward silence for a bit.

But then, it all turned. I tried to explain, gesturing to the sky and explaining the lines and arrows in the sky.

"Aah," he said. "Yes, well…" he said. He looked increasingly uncomfortable.

I can't blame him. He was raised in the tradition of silence. With the belief in the power of hierarchy and bureaucracy. I had been raised that way too, but it, well, it didn't stick. Because I could now see the arrows, and the dotted lines, and the circles laid out across the world. I could clearly see how things were and could be!

"Well, sure," I said.

I explained to Lee everything that ever happened, everything that was happened, everything that could come to pass. People could die for knowing these things. But it was like I've always known it. Like I could always just see it, how it all really was laid out...

The world would be better if more people saw the dotted lines and arrows in the sky. I can look out my window and see them! I'm doing that now. Are we staring at the same night sky, Sasuke?

* * *

Listen, Sasuke…how long have we been friends? Practically your whole life, that's the answer.

Not that you'd know it, because I do. I am getting away from the point. You are the point.

Is this how you want to live your life? Shuffling from one place to the next, never letting anything add up to anything else?

Sasuke, it's not my place to say, I know. My place is back in Konoha, my fingers almost brushing your hand each time you hand over another mission scroll and walking with you on your way home to another reserved night out with Sakura - Sakura who will make you more than you are.

But I'm not here to lecture you, Sasuke. I'm here to understand. Like, what's with all the mess? Your room was strewn with clothes like your dresser got sick from overeating when you left a couple of weeks ago; your room is usually spotless. That doesn't seem like you, Sasuke.

And the ring. That rich, glittering diamond ring that you had bought before you left and…you proposed, Sasuke? That doesn't seem like you either. What does it mean?

I've uncovered many secrets, Sasuke. Do not think that you are going to be able to keep anything from me. I know what is behind those cold eyes of yours. I know about the way you talk and sometimes cry in your sleep.

Yes, I know about the nightmares.

And I know about the dreams, Sasuke. During missions, I used to listen to your steady breathing and mumbling at night as you sleep. If you opened your eyes, I'm sure it would upset you.

So fragile, and yet so certain – your belief in the sanctity and privacy of your mindscape.

This is me, as a part of your life, trying to understand that life. And you, running off with your teammates, running off by yourself, running off at first daylight by yourself, smiling with your friends and smiling by yourself and then sitting dead-eyed and silent for hours alone inside your old apartment some nights, crying without making a sound or moving. A silence of tears down your slack, boyish face.

Sasuke, this is you, and I'm trying to understand.

You're on my mind and the things that you say hurt me most of the time. But I'm on your side. You had kept saying you never wanna be saved… well, that's okay because I don't think I wouldn't know how.

Just know that the best that I'll ever be is whatever you make of me and wherever you are.

* * *

The air is different now. Or…no. It is the way we are breathing that is different. The breathers, all of us, have changed. We've gone funny, you know, just… _funny_. Words can't capture it. But I have only words.

Listen, I love my wife, and she loves her cousin. And we both love our son, and my…cousin-in-law? Hmm…Well, I like to think that Neji would have loved his nephew. So that counts for a lot. That counts for most of it.

I don't hate Boruto the way he hates me. How could I? I understand him. He hates me because he doesn't understand me at all. Cannot see the dotted lines. He cannot see the arrows.

Before the academy entrance ceremony, I tried to explain it all to him. Since then, though, it's like he's never trusted me. It's all for him. It's because I want Boruto to understand the world the way I do. I want him to see the arrows and dotted lines, to know the world, not just repeat what has been told to him.

Hinata, as you might imagine, disagrees. "He's too young to learn these things" she explains to me regularly, and patiently. Sometimes, and I hate myself for it, I hate her infinite patience and kindness. Because I don't deserve it. Despite everyone saying the contrary.

Sakura disagrees as well. "What are you talking about, Naruto" she would huff at me, exasperatedly.

I don't know. Maybe they're both right. It's not like knowing has made my life easier. Quite the opposite.

Quite the opposite.

But every time I look up, I see them. Glowing arrows in the sky, dotted lines and circles, a great chart that explains it all, and I ask you, how can I know all of this? How can I understand, and not try to explain? How can I see the dotted lines so bright and tangible, and deny them?

I have to try, even if it means that everyone – even my wife, or even Boruto – grows to hate me. What should I do, Sasuke? You would say that the truth is more important than all that. It has to be.

Or else, why would it shine so clear above?

–Naruto

* * *

 **A/N:** **Please read and review!**


	5. March to the Sea

**A/N: Hello, I will be updating pretty regularly and frequently it seems! I'm in an inspiration roll haha :D**

* * *

Naruto –

I'm leaving now. Away from the library. My feet are wet and my hands are sweaty. I'll try to forget what I saw there, but…I won't be able to, will I, Naruto? I'll never forget what happened at the library by the sea.

The sea is crystalline. It's seductive. But the land feels angry and lost. There is no harmony here. The tranquility of the lapping waves sputters out and the land slumps into place.

I didn't recognize the name of the village, but the town was vast. Orochimaru talked about this place once, though. He said that this library was legendary - it is a record of everything from the beginning of time, with every book that has ever been written. A collection of the collective's knowledge. If there were answers to everything I need, it was right along the beach, with a huge block rectangle of metal pipes and tanks and three towering stacks, black smoke out over the water. One side of the building went into the high tide line, water just lapping up against the concrete foundation, the gentle white slope of the sand on either side. Weird, right? Why would anyone build a building like that? Why would they be allowed to, with the health hazards alone?

Sorry, off topic.

The library. I didn't see any other huge buildings, so I just walked alongside the beach. There was a young man there. Very young – 16, at the most. Probably less. Way less. The kid was wearing this gray stiff jumpsuit. He was coughing and squinting through the thick black smoke. My eyes watered from the thick smoke.

* * *

"Hi!," the kid at the entrance said. "Hi, my name's Yamazaki Tashiro! You must be Sasuke. We've been expecting you."

"Sure," I said.

He didn't look like much. A little scrawny, but scrappy. Like you. I don't why they needed me or why they were expecting me. He gestured to stray books, each individually labeled with a number and a letter, with yellowed and torn pages stuffed haphazardly inside. I couldn't tell much from the shape of them.

"Cool, cool," the kid said. "This is perfect. Hey, help me with this, would you?"

Together we took them off the cart, and put them piece by piece on a chute, which carried them through a chute into the library. Black smoke out over the water, the sound of churning machines…I didn't see a single human being in sight. No one having a cigarette out on the entrance, not a face in any of the grease-smeared windows, no villagers in sight. Just a beach.

"Why don't we get you settled in our little town, yeah?" He said politely, "Why don't you find me tomorrow?"

* * *

The houses never bend here. Firework outlets, outlets that sell only uniforms of various kinds, temples built like as if hey have no history. Perfectly square or rectangular - if not for the brief and minor embellishments, you couldn't tell them apart.

The farther south you go on this coast, the worse the people get. They're old, and they're mad down here. Why are they so mad?

I checked into an inn that looked like every other building. Smooth, grey stone, perfect square. The clerk gestures angrily at me. Just a few buildings over, a restaurant an unusual shade of green.

I shouldn't judge. No one should. We all do lots of things we shouldn't, though.

Night is falling quicker than I realized.

This is my favorite time, though.

Daylight brings only a chain of visual sensations, none of which cohere into meaning for me anymore. Life has become out of focus, free of consequence. As I headed for the restaurant, I paused, just for a moment. At that moment, I feel again, above me, not even far away now, that steep cliff of awesome size, lit by no sun. An invisible titan, with all thick black forests and jagged rocks and the deep, turbulent oceans stretching out along the coast. I saw nothing but the faint moonlight, but I knew that the cliff and the library are out there – yawning in the unseen spaces.

The moment passes.

The restaurant is radiant green; a slab of mint light in the warm darkness. I squinted when I approached it, like it hurt my eyes, but it did not hurt my eyes. I stopped near the front door.

A old woman shuffled by me, her eyes bleary and sightless, whispering a word over and over to herself.

I ordered something - there was only one kind of tsukemen, and the waitress indicated through words and movements that it will be brought to me.

The old woman slid into the booth across from me. I recognized her vaguely, although she looks considerably different now.

I wondered if the tsukemen will get here soon.

The woman smelled of potting soil and sweat. She leaned across the table and touched my hand lightly.

I didn't pull the hand away, because I knew that there will be no consequence for any of this.

"They are coming" she said slowly, "and I've seen plenty come and go." She tapped the table. Two short then one long. Three short then one long.

 **. .- ... -**

Then, bringing her eyebrows together and pursing her lips, she leaned down and tapped the window. The same pattern.

I nodded again.

"I think my meal is here now," I said unnecessarily, as the tsukemen was quite visibly placed in front of me.

She looked at the meal for a long time, and then lets her breath hiss out slowly through her nose. "They will come from the east. The east wind is coming."

"What do you mean?" I asked. More questions to this puzzling mystery.

She paused, as if deciding to reveal more.

The East Wind takes us all in the end...It's a story my brother told me when we were kids. The East Wind - this terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path. It seeks out the unworthy and plucks them from the earth." she laughed wryly as she gestures to the outside. "I'm just the messenger. We have been waiting for you to arrive for quite some time."

"What did you mean when you said you were expecting me? That's what Toshiro said when I first arrived." The question came out more of a demand than I cared to admit.

She seemed unfazed by my tone. "In short, we were foretold your arrival."

"And in long?"

"A very good question. For another time. That paper you have, it's a warning –" She paused, taking in my reaction. "You don't seem surprised. And you seem keen on ignoring that warning. So I will tell you this – and only this – the east wind is coming. The rest you must figure out yourself."

She then left. I was left with more questions than answers.

The waitress nodded as I left that night, but not at me. She nodded slowly and rhythmically to music only she can hear, her eyes riding the curved line of lights above the menu.

– Sasuke

* * *

 **A/N: Please read and review!**


	6. Behind the Sea

**A/N: Here's the last update for today - please read and review**!

* * *

Naruto –

Daylight came a little too quickly.

Inside the library, the air didn't feel like air but some…artificial replication. It felt hot and tight in my lungs. The hallway was the wrong shade of green, if you know what I mean. You know that green that isn't right, that is off from what it should be? It was that green. Bare bulbs, doors leading off from the hallway, all locked. I walked down the long, long hall. No sign of Tashiro. Ended at a glass door. I pushed through, and I was in some sort of manager's office. Cheap binders, red and blue, overstuffed with paper, an large wooden desk with a computer still running. There was a man there in the same gray jumpsuit. On the wall was in large letters, RECORDS AND REFERENCES.

"Hello?" I said to the man in the jumpsuit.

"Oh, sure, sorry," said the man "Just have to get the paperwork settled."

It was Tashiro, but he was older. I don't know how much, but at least in his early 30s. His hair had already started to gray a bit. He didn't have wrinkles, exactly, but he had the places in his face where the wrinkles would be. I didn't know what to do, standing there like a fool. So I did the only thing I could do. I picked up the uncapped pen on the desk and I signed the forms where he was pointing.

"Ahh, sure, thanks," he said. "Listen, I hate to be a bother, but could you just give me a quick hand with shelving in the next room? No problem if not, but it's a bit of a pain on my own."

I couldn't say anything to him. I nodded. It was all I could do.

"Great, then!" he said, and bustled off through the double doors.

I had some idea of what would happen. I pushed through the doors. No sign of him, of course. It was the library floor, a great arc of a roof with skylights over towering shelves, each shifting with a click from machines, automatic processes that I didn't understand and no person in sight at all! Metal hands rearranging things, and no human beings in sight. I wandered down the concrete aisles, the sound of the machines pounding in my teeth and eyelids. Imagine the scale of them! Picture it for me.

And then, Tashiro again. He was older, in his 50s or early 60s, his wrinkles creasing even more as he smiled. I felt dizzy and sick, the thrum of the machines became a hum in my gut and I tasted hot metal.

"Great," he said, "you made it!"

He was shelving the books now, fitting them into some sort of metal structure. I still couldn't tell what it was.

I said, "What is going on here, Tashiro?"

"Tashiro," he said. "Hah! No one's called me 'Tashiro' in a long, long time. Leave the younger man's name to the younger man."

The howl of the machines echoed back from the empty aisles and walkways, and onto Tashiro, older and stooped. He gestured at what he needed and I helped him put the books on higher shelves, following his instructions and not my own understanding.

I didn't say anything more.

Well, once we had done whatever we did, it didn't look like much. A cube, but missing some bits, maybe. He pressed a button and the whole thing rolled on the conveyor belt through the tunnel of machines and out of the library. He stopped in front of another bookshelf, pulling out a old scroll, worn from age, and several books.

Tashiro gave me a thin, sad smile as he handed me the scroll.

"You'll need this. Not now, but in the near future. You will be able to read this when you need it the most. Now come on, only one more stop now," he said. "Come on, then."

He shuffled his way out of the building, and I followed him. Of course I did.

* * *

Outside the door, a narrow wooden ledge over the water. Blue water, white sand. The light slapping of the ocean against the factory, wearing it away one gentle touch at a time.

Tashiro was there. Already he was so old. His hair was snow white, and his eyes were clouded. He was easily 70, probably 80. Maybe more.

"Well, this is it, then," he said. "Help me with these last few."

And I helped him with those last few books, and as he brought them to the edge of the plank, I understood. And when he gestured I didn't ask questions. I helped him carry the books we had taken out to the edge of the library, and dropped it into the water. And when he reached for my hand, I didn't hesitate. He nodded.

He didn't seem scared. My hands shook, but his were steady.

"Just burn them up, then," he said.

The books bobbed in the water, the ink leaving black trails of its journey. He tilted his head back and put his eyes up to the sky.

And I summoned my flames. The books took off into the tide, and with each wave it was a little farther out. Tashiro muttered a phrase and I set the books alight, tiny beacons of black flames in the endless void of the ocean. I stood there watching as it went out further, and further, and then was gone.

There was now no one in sight. It smelled like the sea, and it smelled like smoke and steel and it smelled like algae and murk.

Once he was gone, and once I felt myself start to breathe again, I stepped off the edge, calf-deep into the water, and I walked through it around the library, and onto the sand, white as bone, white as heat, and I got out, wet as I was, dripping wherever I went, dripping on my clean clothes and scrolls, curling the pages, hands on the map Tashiro gave me, leaving once again. Away across the sand, away from the library, out back onto the road.

Away from the library.

And that's where I am now. In my tiny room at the inn. The scroll is unfurled in my hands, but the writing itself is strange, a map of the world that change into illegible charts and diagrams that change into maps of the night sky. Arrows and circles and dotted lines ever-changing. Promise me you'll explain it all and I'll try to understand.

The sky tonight is a soft, quivering green. The wind is calm, but prepared. There's an east wind coming, I can feel it. It will be cold and bitter and a good many of us may wither before its blast - it is a terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path.

– Sasuke


	7. motel radio broadcast

Naruto –

It's a long way from middle-of-nowhere in Hi no Kuni to Kaze no Kuni. And it is a desolate way.

The landscape is constructed of nothing but endless road and endless mountain. There are no natural features, but the side of the road is a constant chatter. Lots of ordinary people.

* * *

Funny how you settle into a routine, isn't it? The daily drudgery of life sort of just… takes over. I've been staying with in another village for at least a couple weeks now, and now I have a civilian job. Funny, isn't it? I'm imagining that you're laughing at me now. Just a couple of days ago, the paper the man gave me started to act… strange. I'm not sure how else to describe it The paper still says "ŌTSUTSUKI".

I just want to say, that prior to a couple of days ago, I have never felt fear in my entire life. I have felt caution, and unease, and sadness, and joy which are all similar to fear. But I have never felt fear itself. I did not feel it then.

I had gotten to the work of closing the shop: wiping down the counter, sweeping the floor, and adjusting the thick burlap covering up items not for sale. D-rank missions. You would laugh - me, an incarnation of Indra, working at a shop! The paper that man gave to me doesn't leave my hand. I hadn't realized it, had been going about everything without realizing, but there it was and is. Still there now as I write. Dull pencil. Smudged. Hurried handwriting. I tried putting it down on the cracked glass of the countertop.

There are lights now, in the desert. Low bubbles of light coming and going. I have never seen them before. Well, we haven't seen anything like this before.

* * *

Been thinking about when we used to write letters. I mean, before that, we wrote short updates, but after that we wrote long letters. Some of your recent ones are long, detailed.

"Hey, Sas."

Remember when you called me Sas for an entire summer and we could never figure out where that name came from?

"Hey, Sas, with Kaka-sensei at Kirigakure. Sakura and some of the others were going out, but I'm tired. You have to know when to say no, like I always say. Gaara's suite is way better than any place we could afford. Is it the perks of being Kage? I wish you were with me. Luxury vacation, but no. Chunnin exams conference. Who has Chunnin exams in Kiri? Diamond pattern on the duvet is kind of nice. Maybe I should look into that for home."

Goes on for paragraphs. Entire paragraphs.

Our more recent letters are short. They reference texts we made, or texts that we both read. We scattered our communication out. There's not less of it, but it's more places. Herder to follow from a distance. It's a blur, not a narrative.

Hmm. More letters from you.

"Suna is hot, though, isn't it, bastard?"

Right, so this is when you were calling me bastard.

"Suna is hot. Seems like it should be obvious, but I never could have predicted the fact of it on my skin. The reality of heat is harder to take than the idea of it. I guess that's anything, really. I guess I'm describing to you absolutely everything that's ever been. I'm going to knock that off and say that the view of the oasis from my room would be beautiful, if it existed. I'm looking at a pool that's been drained for some reason. Huge cockroach right in the middle of it.

"Bastard, I live the glamorous life for our families. Don't– "

You stopped there.

* * *

I finished my check of the inventory. The paper is still in my hand.

"ŌTSUTSUKI" said the paper.

How did it get there?

I put the paper in a drawer in the back room, in the desk I did not use for the work I did not have. There was nothing more to be done to close the shop. I were honest, and I try to be, I have been looking for excuses not to leave. If I were honest, and I try to be, the floor had been clean enough to begin with. A glance outside the window. The low bubbles of light in the desert were gone. Nothing there but a distant tobishachimaru crawling across the sky, red blinking lights, vulnerable in the vast empty - faint red beacons flashing the message HELLO. A SMALL ISLAND OF LIFE UP HERE, VERY CLOSE TO SPACE.

The paper was in my hand once more.

"ŌTSUTSUKI" the paper said.

I felt fear for the first time.

* * *

The radio came on by itself as I stood there, paper in hand.

The host spoke of the horrors of everyday life. Nearly every broadcast told a story of impending doom or death, or worse: a long life lived in fruitless fear of doom or death. It wasn't that I wanted to know all of the bad news of the world. It was that I loved sitting in the dark of my room, swaddled in blankets and invisible radio waves.

Look, life is stressful. This is true everywhere. But our lifestyle is more stressful. There are things lurking in the shadows. Not the projections of a worried mind, but literal Things, lurking, literally, in shadows. Conspiracies are hidden in every storefront, under every street, and floating in sky above. And with all that there is still the bland tragedy of life. Births, deaths, comings, goings, the gulf of subjectivity and bravado between us and everyone we care about. All is sorrow, as Kakashi once said without really doing much about it.

But when I listen to the radio, it seemed like it was possible to let some of that go. To let go of the worries. To let go of the questions. To let go of letting or going.

* * *

I know I said I wouldn't, but…more of your letters.

"Sas, checking into the inn. Now this is more my speed. None of that fancy stuff, and they have mediocre tea for free in the lobby.

"Conference is tomorrow, so I have a day to explore everything that Kumogakure has to offer. Which is…well, I don't know. It's right outside my hotel door, so I don't have to go far (already a plus). There's the library place that I can spend a satisfactory five minutes thinking about never visiting, lots of hills and rocks that look like the backdrop in an old kabuki theatre (mainly 'cause they were).

"Found a weirdly good ramen place, and you know how I like that. That's about it. Love you – "

"Love you, Sas. See you home soon."

I'll admit. It made me smile. When it was just the two of us on a mission – and I want you to think about this, Naruto, I want you to remember. When it was just the two of us, it wasn't like being alone, but it also wasn't like being with another person. It was something in between. It was all the benefits of being alone, with none of the downsides.

* * *

The slip of paper, however, I could not let go of. I opened my hand, and watched it flutter to the floor. I watched it flutter to the floor. I stared at it. It was on the floor. I stared and stared, and it sat and sat, and then I blinked and it was back in my eyes.

It was a mistake to accept what the man in the purple cloak had offered me. I don't know what it is, or what it meant, or what information it was trying to convey and to whom. But I knew, right then, that it had changed something. The world was slipping into my life. And I had to push it out, starting with this slip of paper, and the man in the purple cloak.

Out in the desert, bubbles of light, low to the ground. The echo of a crowd arguing and then cheering. For a moment, a tall building, all glass and angles and business, where there had definitely been nothing but sand, and then it was gone, and there were more lights, shifting, warping the air around them. And the echo of crowds. And the lights.

I left the store, and started my journey to my room, tossed the slip of paper out the window and watching with satisfaction as it fluttered into the night behind me, and then, snapping my fingers, caught the paper between them, where it was, where it had always been.

– Sasuke


	8. motel interlude

Naruto –

There's something lying by the side of the road. A pile of clothes, or…no, that's a human shape. Oh, it can't be a victim of the man, the hungry man. That would be too neat. There's no way he could…

The shape is moving. It's getting up. Okay, I need to get out of here, I need to start going back to my mission.

It's standing and I can't do it, I can't just leave! Because here's the gamble I have no choice but to accept: what if it's an innocent person and she needs my help? And I left? I'd rather bet wrong one way than the other, I guess. Maybe that makes me a fool after all.

The figure's standing. It's turning…I'm staying…it's…it's a teenage girl. I…

Wh–

What is she doing by the side of the highway like this? There are far worse things than men circling these roads.

She's coming over to me.

* * *

Akira is asleep in the booth. I could use some rest too, but I have a destination in mind. Somewhere needs going, you know? I don't know what I'll find there. But it's a step, at least…having a direction, even if I don't know where that direction will take me.

I couldn't just leave her there, not on the side of the road like that.

"What do you know?" she asked. First thing she said, even before she even stood up.

"What do I know?" I said. "Uh, lots of things. I know you're a kid, and you shouldn't be on the side of the road like that. So I guess, if we're making a list, we could start there."

"You stopped for me. You were looking at a slip of paper. You were looking at it and crying. You must know something."

I didn't say anything. The restaurant window suddenly looked very interesting..

She smelled strongly of something I couldn't place. Like a walk through a park, but condensed into a single overpowering scent. Floral, but also herb-y. It was intense.

"Okay, maybe you don't know anything," she said. "Fine, I don't know anything either."

I had a lot of questions for her, obviously, but I just let us both stew in it for a bit

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"Akira. Nakashima Akira."

"I've heard that name somewhere," I said. I couldn't for the life of me remember where. Recognition without link.

"Common name, I guess," she said.

* * *

The restaurant was packed, as it always was in the evenings. There were few places in town where one could quietly have dinner in the company of so many other people also quietly having dinner. There is nothing more lonely than an action taken quietly on your own, and nothing more comforting than doing that same quiet action in parallel with fellow humans doing the same action, everyone alone next to each other. It was part of the charm.

My left hand clutched the piece of paper, where it had been clutched since yesterday evening. Earlier I had placed the paper in a small lockbox, which I locked. It got out.

I tried showering the paper away before. Taking a shower often solved problems for me. I would find myself with thoughts that seemed to come from outside of me, thoughts that would question my decisions or offer suggestions or just consider life hazily in a way that made it seem like the thoughts could not possibly be my own.

When I held the paper directly under the stream of the shower, it had turned soggy and dissolved, falling into sludge that crumbled toward the drain. But then it was back in my hand. Over and over I destroyed it, and over and over it returned.

I left the shower as most people leave showers, clean and a little lonely.

* * *

Sitting in the restaurant, out of hope for much else, Akira rolled the same slip of paper in her hand and shoved it into her meal. She downed the entire bowl like she hadn't eating in days, which might have also been the case. It was hard to tell. Her left hand twitched and it was like - it was like she knew.

"Dammit!" she said, stabbing the paper with a knife and then repeated "Dammit" a couple more times in a hopeless decrescendo..

"ŌTSUTSUKI" said the paper.

The man to our left was poking at the chipped countertop. His straw hat was set very far back on his head so that his face seemed longer than it should be. All in all, no one cared about the young woman shouting and jabbing at her hand.

I stared the paper in my hand and knew that I would not do anything I normally did. This knowledge came as a pain in my stomach and a fluttering on my neck. It was a physical, this knowledge, as a strong knowing always is. It had more to do with an ache in my bones than a notion in my head.

She wouldn't tell me anything. We were almost to my destination at this point, near the Land of the Waves.

"No offense, I just have to know if I can trust you," she said.

"Well, I have no idea if you can," I said. "I don't know what I'm being trusted with."

"You've seen it too," she said. "Strange people and places out on the road? The road takes weird turns for you, same as it does for me."

"What have you seen?" I said.

"What have you seen?" she said, and smiled. "My mom and I, we used to travel a lot. Part of her job. And on breaks, I would come with her. Lots of time on the road. We started to see what other people were missing, between the inns and the teahouses. There's something dangerous out there. There's a crack somewhere, and something terrible is seeping through."

"Do you know what that something is?" I asked.

"Hmm," she said. "Don't you wish, sometimes, that you could forget? That you could just have your memory wiped, and then you wouldn't be a person wandering,, but a person who was almost somewhere? A person about to arrive? And when you arrived, you could just stay? You could just stay."

"Yes," I said.

"Yeah. God, yeah, me too," she said.

"Okay," she said, considering for a moment before considering. "Hey, I need to ask you something. Or, to do something, and I can't tell you why. Would you do it?"

My first impulse was sarcasm or similar, but instead I just sighed.

"Honestly, probably," I said.

"Okay. I need to get to Tonika Village. Can you take me there?"

"What? It's the complete opposite direction from where I'm going. I have to get to the border of Kiri -"

She cut me off.

"I wish I could tell you everything, but I can't. I'm asking, though. You're the first person I've talked to – like really talked to in…I don't know, weeks? Months? I need you to take me somewhere. It has to do with…you know…"

She gestured, her hands circling out to indicate all the things neither of us were willing to specify.

* * *

Tonika Village is not the most bustling of towns. Everything seemed nice, but also empty. Life had left this town, I think. There was less of it than there once was.

Akira directed me to a small book shop in the village, across from a farm stand that was closed, and not one but two different ceramics shop – both of which were also closed.

"So, what now?" I asked.

"We wait," she said, and she picked up a book and started reading.

"All right then. I'm getting some food. You want anything?"

She didn't look up from the book.

"Suit yourself."

The guy at the counter was withdrawn. Didn't comment on me or my choice in snack, didn't comment on anything. Seemed laid back, which was fine with me.

In the bookstore, I ate my tomatoes and waited…and waited. The sky changed its shade, and then its color. Akira got fidgety.

"He was supposed to already be here," she said.

"Who was?" I asked.

"Let's just ask inside."

We went inside and Akira asked the guy at the counter if he had seen a man who claimed to be from Hachō Village. The guy's eyes widened, and he shook his head. I revised my impression of him. He wasn't laid back, he was terrified. He had seen something, and he wanted desperately to forget.

I leaned in, Sharingan active, and tried to make my voice quiet and gentle.

"I'm gonna need you to look at me in the eyes, okay? I know what you've seen tonight. Now I have seen terrible things too, and so has this girl, and as long as we're all quiet, nothing is going to change. Those terrible things are going to keep on happening. Do you want to live in a world where what you saw is possible? Or do you want us to try to change that?"

I held his gaze.

"I'm sorry," he said.

So I said, "Okay, okay. How about this? Whatever scared you, know that I can be so much scarier than that."

His mouth twitched downward and his fingers fidgeted.

"I– I just don't know what you're talking about," he said. And as he said it, he pointed past the back wall of the store to the thick trees behind it.

It didn't take long poking through the leaves to find the man that had laid there. No blood, but the clothes had been torn up, slashed over and over.

And Akira, she collapsed on the forest floor. Just went limp, gave up. She stayed there for a minute or two, letting whatever hope she had allowed to build in herself fade. And then she started telling me a story.

– Sasuke

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for the late update! My computer was in the shop for a couple of weeks rip.**


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